Best MPEG-2 capture?

[lbblock]

I have Win98se/FAT 32 with a P-3/1GHz. AIW 9000 Pro and a 2nd video-dedicated 120Gb 7200rpm, 8mb cache HDD.

I have been using Ulead VS7 Trial and as far as a program goes, it has been great. In prep for the capture, I have all non-essential programs and hardware shut off and I don't think I have any dropped frames. I capture in DVD compliant MPEG-2 and Ulead VS does not render it when the capture is DVD compliant.

I have old TV shows that I want to put onto DVD (3 per DVD). With a 4Gb limit (especially the VOB), these are my current analog capture settings.....

MPEG-2/mpa: 720x480, CBR 3500, Field B.

I am not very happy with the quality of the finished product. Due to a 1.33 Gb limit per capture (3 shows per DVD, remember?) the above specs are the max I can do. I could just ask for help on what I can do (if anything) to improve the finished quality but I would probably (and accurately so) get mostly comments like "get NFTS" or "get a P-4". I just cannot do either right now.. I have to work with what I have. So...

Would going from CBR to VBR on the capture make a discernible improvement (especially in scenes with movement)?? Any higher of a bit rate will pop me past 1.33 Gb.

I understand from other threads that the Ulead MPEG-2 capturing is actually pretty good. I really haven't anything to compare it to. My MMC 8.1 crashes (kernel32.dll) as soon as I hit "TV". Pinnacle Studio has more bugs that a greasy spoon joint. My DVD only captures and burns in PCM (makes the file sizes to big... and the audio is not that critical with old TV shows).

Lastly, it has been suggested that I do multi-segment AVI captures and encode them to MPEG-2 for the burn. I have read that MPEG-2 captures sacrifice quality for speed, and that the opposite is true when encoding (slow but high quality). I could get MMC to work and multi-segment capture but how do I get it encoded to MPEG-2 without frameserving. (Honestly, this will drive me nuts if I have to use 5 programs (MMC or VDub, TEMPEnc, TEMPGenc DVD, BeSweet, etc, etc) and another $100 or $200 in software to get through this.

Anyway, that is a mouthful. Thanks for reading this with patience and I hope that you are able to help me out. Happy New Year.

[DaveS]

lbblock - that is a mouthful but it also sounds like you've spent some quality time thinking about this stuff...a few thoughts come to mind & I'm sure other will chime in:

- what codec are you using for capture? I don't use ulead so I don't know what it's defaults are or whether it comes w/ some / any codecs, but the picvideo mjpeg codec has worked well for me and has good trade-offs between quality / speed, which will be important for you http://www.pegasusimaging.com/picvideomjpeg.htm .. the codec is $28 to purchase but if you can download a demo, you can test the quality and it will just watermark your captures / decodes. one thing to try is try a moderately high quality setting like 18 or 19 and see if it clips your processor and then back off from there to see what the best quality you can capture at without dropping frames.. huffyuv also (may be free? not sure)

- can you catpure at 352x480? the 3500 cbr bitrate seems too low for 720x480 to get decent quality. vbr will help, but try the reduced resolution first...you won't notice the difference in terms of 'lost' resolution (assume vhs source?) but you will have much better clarity for your bitrate of 3500...what are you authoring with? If it can accept the 1/2 D1 (above) and your DVD player is ok w/ it, you'll do much better for your available bits.

[vhelp]

ibblock,

believe me, I do understand your delima. It's true you have a slow system
but not that slow you know.

Yes, you could try an .AVI (segmented) capture, though I'm not sure if MMC
does m.segment caputures - I think its limted to 2g or 4gig if your have FAT32
form factor.

The easiest way is.. there is none. You really have to test all the water has
to offer you in your given setup. You are strapped, as you said. Now, its
time to do some tinkering (and learning) about your setup and whats the
best method to achive your goal. You goal is to maximize your quality and
3/disk scenario.

I'll share w/ you my simple method, but to you, it may be too exhaustive to
give a go at, but in the end, this is your aim, if you what the above goal to
success - K ?

* I capture w/ vdub or avi_io (choose your resolution for your medium, ie
720 x 480) But, if your system can't handle it, you'll have plenty of dropped
frames, and this may or may not degrade your final produce test and try
to be sure on this.
* next, I again, in vdub, I edit the source (ie, take out commercials and other
nonsense junk cause you don't commericals working in "overtime" for ya)
* next, I would frameserve it into TMPG, using a DVD template (is great for
these template stuff) and finall encode to DVD spec.
* next, I would author (w/ your favorite app) to DVD (ie, VOBs) and then
* finally, burn to DVDR/RW disk for enjoyment - plus popcorn

In my case, I'm using DVIO w/ my DV device (advc) and basiclaly follow
the same road map above :P

Good luck,
-vhelp

[Soapm]

I have old TV shows that I want to put onto DVD (3 per DVD). With a 4Gb limit (especially the VOB), these are my current analog capture settings.....

MPEG-2/mpa: 720x480, CBR 3500, Field B.

I am not very happy with the quality of the finished product. Due to a 1.33 Gb limit per capture (3 shows per DVD, remember?) the above specs are the max I can do.

Not sure if you have been by www.lordsmurf.com but according to that site, if you capture with a bitrate lower than 4000 then you should drop your resolution to 352X480. With 720X480 you must have a high bitrate (above 4000). Whoops, just read Daves response so I will add, "like Dave said". Out of curiosity, how do you know field B is correct? Also, are you careful with interlace settings?

I am no expert but I spent all morning on the above site. Test these theories and see if you get any improvement. I am interested in your outcome.[/url]

[lordsmurf]

One step at a time.

How much time do you want to put on the disc? 30 minutes, an hour, 30 hours... that's the first question I need answered.

[bottle-necked]

That CBR isn't such a good idea when you're trying to cram a disk, but it is alot easier on your CPU usage percent than VBR.

The 3500 & 720x480 isn't such a good idea either, expecially with that CBR. It's going to loose some quality.

Putting 3 programs on 1 disk, that's like 2.5 hours, really isn't that big a deal. I had company last weekend and we watched one of my projects. I had 1 DVD disk with 'The Crow' and 'Blade II' on it. I had captured both movies in MPEG2 off satellite dish a few weeks ago. I can't remember now, but they was nearly 4 hours total. The quality was great and my guests were surprised. 2-1/2 hours isn't a big deal.

It's possible to do this project and to do it properly. You're just going to need to change a few things. That's all.

Actually that project wasn't as planned. I captured both movies as if I were going to put each on it's own DVD. I used 720x480 8max and 6.4 avg. I then decided to put them both on 1 disk so I used DVD Shrink and make it fit. Very impressive program to say the least.

P.S. As for field 'B' setting in Ulead VideoStudio V7!!!! I would burn a short clip to DVD and try it on TV before I got to carried away. It might be wrong. (and probably is)

Good luck.

[grossjamesh]

Why dont you simply upgrade to W2K or XP and break the file limit.

[lbblock]

My goal is to put in 3 files of almost 50 minutes each.

I have tried the 1/2 D1 std but didn't see much difference in quality or file size. I know that going to VBR might clog up the CPU but potentially could it make much of a difference of a CBR at the same bit rate ?

Interlace: Ulead VS7 has no adjustment for this (it is default but there is an option to de-interlace... which I understand is a no-no for an analog video source).

I don't think that Ulead VS7 can import a codec and what is native is unknown and not stated. Maybe there is some way in an ini file to direct it elsewhere but I am not aware of such a function.

I do think that MMC 8.1 can multi-segment AVIs and maybe even add codecs. It is the frameserving or encoding part to get them to MPEG-2 that way complicates this (and I still don't know if it would be to any benefit!!!). How the MMC MPEG-2 codec performs (or others if it can import), as well, are unknown.

Whew, this is too much!!! Thanks to you all!

[bottle-necked]

lbblock

Don't dispare, success is just a few clicks away. We've all been there and it's that learning curve that you're into right now. It'll come, it just take a little time and testing. Thats all.

ATI MMC doesn't let you change the MPEG codec. Neither does Ulead. You can change it for AVI captures, but not for MPEG.

CBR means 'constand bitrate', and VBR means 'varable bitrate'. Just to get on the same footing here.

The reason your 1/2 D1 didn't show any difference in file size was because you used that same CBR rate. You can gain advantage in quality and file size by using VBR because you then give the program the ability to adjust for fast and slow action. With a newer version of MMC it lets you adjust both the max and average rates for VBR. Thats a huge benefit over one selection slider in the older versions.

I had a 128 Pro card like yours one time and I was having a lot of problems trying to capture MPEG2. Updating MMC helped, but that card is going to be limited in it's capabilities. AVI might be a better solution. You'll haft to figure that one out for your own system. I don't know.

www.lordsmurf.com has lots of useful information and I suggest you visit his site. He can teach you how to capture video in a very short time there. It's for ATI people like us, and he's the ATI expert. Try his template ideas and you'll start getting the most from your card and your system. Guaranteed.

Don't give up.
Good luck.

[dunamis]

Bottle-necked:
What capture card are you using for your mpeg captures?

[FulciLives]

I would capture at Full D1 (720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL) using an AVI format such as the PICVideo MJPEG codec (which is what I use on the 19 quality setting).

Now resize that to Half D1 (352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL) for your MPEG-2 DVD encoding.

I've found that most 60 minute TV episodes are just under 45 minutes once you edit out the commercials. So 3 epsides at 45 minutes each will fit on a DVD disc if you use a VIDEO bitrate of 4000kbps with either 224kbps or 256kbps MP2 or AC-3 audio.

Try a 2-pass VBR with a MAX of 6000 an AVG of 4000 and a MIN of 2000

That should give you REALLY good results.

If you really must get 150 minutes total (3 programs at 50 minutes each) then you need to use a bitrate of about 3600kbps in which case do a 2-pass VBR with a MAX of 6000 an AVG of 3600 and a MIN of 1200

Again these bitrate values are based on Half D1 resolution and the fact that you will be using MP2 or AC-3 at a bitrate of no higher than 256kbps

Also consider using CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER for your MPEG-2 encoding. CCE BASIC is only about $70.00 and does a GREAT job plus it is very fast. I have a slow computer and loved using TMPGEnc but DAMN is it slow!

CCE is MUCH faster than TMPGEnc especially noticeable on a slow computer.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[lbblock]

You have all been great. I would like to reiterate from my original post. I don't want 5 different programs to do this and I cannot afford right now to buy another $200 in programs. You guys have brought up some really interesting things.

We seem to be leaning towards a program that one can specify an MPEG-2 codec for capturing or to AVI. I am still left with the question as to how I am going to get an AVI (multi-segmented) back into MPEG-2 for burning.

The DVD Shrink idea is an interesting one!! What about capturing in MPEG-2 at a high bit rate and then shrinking it to 1.33Gb?? Does it shrink MPEG-2's or just AVI's? Too bad one cannot capture and encode off-site!

What are your thoughts on these, oh wise ones.

[Soapm]

Why not answer Lord Smurf question? I have been wating for the response. [/sit back on pins and needles]

One step at a time.

How much time do you want to put on the disc? 30 minutes, an hour, 30 hours... that's the first question I need answered.

[lbblock]

If you are talking to me.....I did about 5 posts ago.

"My goal is to put in 3 files of almost 50 minutes each".

I am waiting too!!

[feenix]

I run MMC 7.7 on a WinME system (therefore fat32).

If somebody's already said this and I've missed it I apologise in advance, but MMC will capture segmented MPG2. You can break the segements at 4gb no problem and keep high bitrates for capturing. It wil not capture segmented avi's

[lbblock]

Hi feenix, that is interesting. Not AVI's? Since I have 4Gb limit and a 4.37Gb DVD limit, the ability to multi-segment capture MPEGs unfortunately does not seem to really help me much. I don't need to edit them, too.

Thanks, Lar

[bottle-necked]

Bottle-necked:
What capture card are you using for your mpeg captures?

dunamis, click my profile button ok.

The DVD Shrink idea is an interesting one!! What about capturing in MPEG-2 at a high bit rate and then shrinking it to 1.33Gb?? Does it shrink MPEG-2's or just AVI's? Too bad one cannot capture and encode off-site!

lbblock, DVD Shrink - shrinks dvd folders and disks, not MPEG2 or AVI files. To use that method you need to author your files to a hdd folder then shrink them to fit. The results will depend on many factors but the few times I did it has been with good to surprising results. I don't recommend it as a cure all process, but it's worth a try. Might work and it's easy to do. I suppose it depends on the quality of the files and the amount of compression needed.(?)

Good luck.

[feenix]

lbblock,

Actually it does help. You would need to author ,as has been suggested ,(TMPGenc Author will do it) by loading both segments (or all depending on length of capture) and producing all the vob's etc. You would then run DvdShrink to get back down to you 4.3 gb DVDr limit.

[lordsmurf]

ATI MMC doesn't let you change the MPEG codec. Neither does Ulead. You can change it for AVI captures, but not for MPEG.

Umm... yeah.. MPEG has no codecs. It's the format.

My goal is to put in 3 files of almost 50 minutes each.

My magic ball, actually my little notebook I wrote months ago, says that for 150 minutes, or 2½ hours (which is 6 half hour shows with no commercials, or 3 hour shows in your case), you should run 352x480 VBR/CBR at 4033k, resulting in files about 1.4GB each.

I caught wind that you have an ATI card, so encode direct to MPEG in ATI MMC (7.7 or higher only) and then use either AC3 or MP2 audio (224/256k suggested) in the final disc. Use whatever to author.

[bottle-necked]

Smurf, you know what I meant.
8)

later man.......>>>

[lordsmurf]

Smurf, you know what I meant.
8)

later man.......>>>

Actually, as soon as somebody started talking about changing the "MPEG codec" I had no clue what anybody was saying!

Figured I'd just lay down the facts, and let everybody else sort that mess out.

[lbblock]

Well Gentlemen, I could still use your input. I have commented on many of the great suggestions and observations that you shared....

Lordsmurf, your calcs are certainly accurate! I have done the 1/2 D1 spec at CBR3500 that resulted in a file of about 1.33Gb. The pic quality left something to be desired and if I go larger I will not be able to fit the 3 shows on a DVD. That is what I have been asking... how can I improve the picture quality yet stay within my 4Gb VOB limit?? Also Lordsmurf, I cannot get my MMC to stop crashing when I hit "TV" (atimmc in conexc.dll, then atimmc in kernel32.dll). I have already uninstalled and reinstalled to no benefit.

bottle-neck- Let talk DVD Shrink.... So, I would have to author a high quality MPEG-2 (under 4Gb) file into a VOB in order to shrink it. Could I then release the shrunk MPEG-2 from the VOB so that I can add it to two others similarly treated and create a new <4Gb VOB for my final burn? It seems that you did that, how??

AVI- Some seem to think that capturing as a multi-segment AVI, then transcoding it to an MPEG-2 would provide an improvement over a MPEG capture. Here comes my newbie brain.... do I have to frameserve it to MPEG or is there another (free) way to transcode it? When the word frameserve comes up, then MMC is out and Virtual Dub is in?? Now were are talking the $70 TEMPGenc right??

Oh, bottle-necked questioned my choice of Field B. I was on the Ulead site and they insisted that analog capture is Field B. s

Fulcilives got into a little Greek on his first posting. Let's see.... first a D1 capture, then change that to 1/2 D1, then he said " If you really must get 150 minutes total (3 programs at 50 minutes each) then you need to use a bitrate of about 3600kbps in which case do a 2-pass VBR with a MAX of 6000 an AVG of 3600 and a MIN of 1200 "... HUH???

Thanks. I know that I ask a lot of questions but bear with me. We do not seem to have come to a concensus on how to improve the pic quality of this process. There must be an answer!! Thanks a lot!!

[lordsmurf]

What's wrong with the quality at that size? Should look pretty decent. Be sure you have MMC 7.7 or higher. Use 8.x for best quality.

You can always capture AVI, then re-encode as MPEG with TMPGENC PLUS, the $50 or so program.

Don't use DVD Shrink. It'll result in lower quality than just doing it proper to start with. Only use that method for when you make mistakes.

[lbblock]

Hi lordsmurf, really, it looked pretty bad!! Maybe it is the Ulead's capturing that is nasty. I would try to use MMC but look at my last post. MMC is DOA right now and ATI offers no support to speak of (shockingly so). Google turned up nothing and I have already uninstalled/reinstalled.

Any ideas?? I would next try to capture in MMC 8.1 and see what happens. I will also try VBR instead of CBR to see if I could get away with that without dropped frames.

[bottle-necked]

Slow down,,,, slow down. I'm old and don't need to read that fast.

bottle-neck- Let talk DVD Shrink.... So, I would have to author a high quality MPEG-2 (under 4Gb) file into a VOB in order to shrink it. Could I then release the shrunk MPEG-2 from the VOB so that I can add it to two others similarly treated and create a new <4Gb VOB for my final burn? It seems that you did that, how??

First question: Yes.

Second question: I was on XP and didn't have that file size limit. I've owned every version of Windows since V3.0, but when I was using 98 I wasn't working with files that big. You're going to haft to figure that out on your own, but it sounds like you've already got a handle on it.

Third question: TMPGEnc DVD Author. It's a great program to author (create those vob files) DVDs and DVD HDD folders (what you are looking for). Browse a quick DVD Author guide, you'll see real quick why that is a great program. It will also author VOB files, so you can combine yours with no prob-lem-o!

MMC Crashing? Been there. Probably a driver, either system or ATI. Sometimes those upgrades are murder. You're on your own again. Try uninstalling ATI. Make sure your video adapter is using VGA. Edit the registry and delete everything that has ATI in it. Edit your Windows folder structure and delete everything that has ATI in the filename. Delete every file and folder on your system that has ATI in the name, then reinstall with V7.7 or greater. I don't know. I've fixed them like that before but I don't rememeber exactly how now.(?)

Increase Quality: The one main thing I did to help my video capture quality was to spend $160.00+ on A/V and S/Video cables. I'm running 'all' good quality gold - filtered - big cables on all my video equiptment. I replaced the coax to my satellite dish. I got rid of all my small old cables and my capture quality came way up. I was surprised, you will be also.

The rest of that stuff: I don't know, I need another beer. 8)
Good luck.

[mnkyboy]

My magic ball, actually my little notebook I wrote months ago, says that for 150 minutes, or 2½ hours (which is 6 half hour shows with no commercials, or 3 hour shows in your case), you should run 352x480 VBR/CBR at 4033k, resulting in files about 1.4GB each.

Lordsmurf, I have a Leadtek TV2000XP Deluxe capture card. I am using the Winfast PVR software that came with the card. I dont see a choice for 352x480 resolution, only 352x240 or 320x480. Also, I dont have a choice for CBR or VBR, just "Target Data Rate". I know you probably dont know much about this card, but do you know any other software that has more settings?

I also wanted to know if mpeg-2 codecs vary from manufacturer to manufacturer?

My current settings are 352x240, targe data rate 4000, and mpeg-1 audio layer 2, 224 kbps.

The captures come out fine, but when I author a dvd with them, the audio and video go out-of-sync after awhile of watching them. Any ideas why? I used TMPGEnc DVD author, and also Ulead Video Studio.

Any suggestions/comments appreciated. Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Capture AVI, re-encode MPEG

-or-

Try MainConcept 1.4 for MPEG capture.
Maybe PowerVCR or WinDVR, but those two honestly suck.

[FulciLives]

AVI- Some seem to think that capturing as a multi-segment AVI, then transcoding it to an MPEG-2 would provide an improvement over a MPEG capture. Here comes my newbie brain.... do I have to frameserve it to MPEG or is there another (free) way to transcode it? When the word frameserve comes up, then MMC is out and Virtual Dub is in?? Now were are talking the $70 TEMPGenc right??

This is correct. If you capture as segmented AVI files then you need to use a SOFTWARE MPEG-2 encoder such as TMPGEnc Plus or CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER aka CCE BASIC either of which cost approximately $70 USD

Fulcilives got into a little Greek on his first posting. Let's see.... first a D1 capture, then change that to 1/2 D1, then he said " If you really must get 150 minutes total (3 programs at 50 minutes each) then you need to use a bitrate of about 3600kbps in which case do a 2-pass VBR with a MAX of 6000 an AVG of 3600 and a MIN of 1200 "... HUH???

I don't see how this is confusing otherthan you have apparently NO software MPEG-2 encoding experience but this IS basic stuff. I'm not sure how else to explain it.

However this option WILL give you the BEST possible quality at the file size you are attempting to achieve.

The only way to improve your quality is to do a 2-pass or multipass VBR encode which cannot be done in real time. Also this method will allow you to use a "noise" filter of some sort to "clean up" the image quality.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Save yourself the grief and buy WinXP so you can upgrade to NTFS and forget the filesize limit. However using segmented AVI capture the method I suggest should still work A-OK

[spiderman2k1]

I have ATI AIW card and a Dazzle 2 capture card must say Dazzle 2 is alot better go to www.dazzlegeek.com to read more.

[sacajaweeda]

I gave up on capturing stuff to MPEG if there was to be any editing involved.